July 1
“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” – John Steinbeck
So true, so true. So if the stars had aligned appropriately I would have arrived in Turks and Caicos around 1pm and had a whole day of beach and island time to enjoy, but the heavens were not allowing it yesterday. After a very intense week of finishing up residency, packing up my “precious” belongings in 118 degree AZ heat (I don’t know how I collected so much stuff I swear I kept paring down), carting it in a 17’ uhaul trailer across state lines during the wee hours of the morning, getting 4 hours of sleep and then moving it into storage in San Diego I headed to the airport to begin my journey.
I started the trip off right with a nice glass of wine and some yummy (no joke) airport food and made my way to Newark for a quick overnight layover. Up at 6AM (I am not a morning person and soon I will be able to choose my own hours), splurged on some waffles (it’s vacay, I’m allowing myself some carbs) and other yummy breakfast before I was chauffeured to the airport.
Everything was going smoothly. We boarded the plane, almost ready to take off when the first announcement came:
“This is the captain speaking, welcome aboard. Unfortunately, we have a rain storm coming through so we need to wait for that to pass and then we’ll be off.”
An hour later, “ladies and gentleman they’ve shut down the flights outbound because of weather and we don’t know when they are going to open it back up.”
Another hour later, “we’re going to let you off the plane to get food.”
Twenty minutes later, “they just cleared our route out so we can’t let you off the plane”.
An hour later, “we are number fifty in line, sorry folks.”
Another hour later, “they’ve told us to shut down our engines to conserve fuel because they are trying to figure out our re-route.” Awesome...I used the time to catch up on much needed sleep.
Twenty minutes later, “folks, they’ve just given us our new flight plan and we’re getting ready to take off. Buckle up!” Resounding cheers from the cabin.
Three hours into the flight, “well folks, we’ve been fighting 100 mph head winds the whole way down and were told we would have a tail wind. We had enough fuel when we left but because of the head winds we won’t make it unless we stop for fuel so we are going to stop in West Palm Beach.”
This is the point where I start laughing and I realized that my yogini skills of non-attachment are coming into play. The old version of me would have been CRANKY, more like extremely pissed off. Being sleep deprived, hungry, and having to wait in a confined space does not make me a happy Coley. With this perfect trifecta it usually only takes a small thing to set me off. Now, after my months of yogini training ;) who gives a shit? Honestly, is getting angry going to do anything in the moment other than make you and everyone else more unhappy? Nope. So laugh about and enjoy the time to yourself and detach. I found this quote and thought it was apt:
“The beautiful journey of today can only begin when we learn to let go of yesterday.”
Finally fueled up and getting ready for take off the captain says, “folks we really appreciate your attitude about everything that has happened today. About everything that could go wrong has...” at which point I thought, dude don’t put that out there, we still have to fly over open water and land on a small island. You’re just about to invoke Murphy’s law with that statement.
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| Finally! On approach to TCI... |
Anyway, we made it without incident and I could smell the ocean in the muggy air as we walked down the landing steps. God I love the ocean! Whisked off into a van to my hotel I was immediately met with the best thing about traveling alone. Meeting people. One of the poor passengers had missed her connection to a smaller island and had to spend the night here. We started talking and then realized we were staying at the same hotel.
After checking in we agreed that after a 12 hour journey to get here, a cleansing dip at the beach was a necessary inauguration of our trips. A fast change into bathing suits and grabbing a local beer to go we made the quick walk to the beach. So amazing. It wasn’t crowded. The wind was a perfect temperature. The sun was a warm golden orange with rays of pink and purple reflecting off the water. The water felt like a warm bath. You couldn’t ask for a better welcome to vacation.
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| A very happy Coley! :) |
As we floated and chatted she commented on how when you travel alone you often rely on signs and your intuition. I became acutely aware of this during my trip to Israel. You tend to go with the flow. Her signs to hang out with me: my story of the last year of my life was eerily similar to hers, I had the same purple suitcase as her, I’m traveling alone, and I had red hair which meant I had to be fun. :) My signs: the fact that we were staying at the same hotel, when she handed me her card with her cell phone on it her job description said brand strategy and identity...something I’ve been looking for over the past week to help me with my business. Perfection. We enjoyed the water, the scenery, and then enjoyed a yummy dinner at a beachside resort of fresh seafood and delicious girly cocktails while we compared travel stories.
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| Getting close to sunset... |
As we walked back to the hotel I thought about how fun traveling alone is when you let go and open yourself up to meeting people and having experiences. It always brings about the most interesting conversations. Even with my move I got asked by the burly movers, “you drove this yourself?”
“Mmhmm”, as I’m sweating my ass off unloading shit.
“Really? You’re moving alone.” Like this was some unfathomable thing to be doing.
“Yes...in the middle of the night, too.” I could see this didn’t sit well with him. So to make him feel better I said, ”I’ve moved a lot. Driving a moving truck could be a second job for me by now.” That seemed to make him feel more comfortable.
Why are so many people uncomfortable with other people doing stuff alone? I pretty much have the same conversation when I travel. Replace the word ‘move’ with ‘travel’ and you have the conversation I have every time I journey out into the world. By the end of the chat I usually have new friends and they want to hear about my adventures, but my resounding answer is, traveling alone is an amazing experience. Try it!
I know people worry about feeling lonely, but if you let go and are open to saying hello and engage in life around you, you are anything but lonely. Last night in the jacuzzi a girl started telling me that she couldn’t do it because she wasn’t very outgoing. My response, “you don’t have to be....people come to you.” Case in point, she started the conversation with me. Once people know you are traveling alone suddenly you have offers to lunches, dinner, travel experiences that aren’t open to the average tourist. I’ve had personal guided tours of towns from locals followed by home made meals and wonderful celebrations leaving amazing memories and new found friends around the globe. How do you beat that?!
Just try it once. You don’t have to go out of the country, but just step away from your life and let go. Be open to experiencing something new. I know it’s scary the first time, but it’s good for you to test your comfort zones. Once you do, your comfort zone gets a little larger and you’ll be eager for the next step. :)
“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber
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| Grace Bay Sunset |
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